On thin ice

Priebus, on thin ice in the West Wing, keeps close eye on RNC

The chief of staff is staying deeply involved in RNC matters, despite having his hands full in Trump's White House.

By MATTHEW NUSSBAUM and JOSH DAWSEY

President Donald Trump’s embattled chief of staff, Reince Priebus, has been keeping an unusually tight grip on the Republican National Committee even while internal turmoil and a stalled legislative agenda have left his full-time job in peril.

Priebus, who led the RNC from 2011 until he assumed the White House job earlier this year, has so far given little autonomy to his successor, Ronna Romney McDaniel, with one senior Republican operative close to the White House saying Priebus’ control over the RNC is “total and complete.”

Priebus wants to be continually updated on fundraising numbers, potential candidates for office and polling numbers, according to one strategist with knowledge of the RNC. He repeatedly asked RNC officials about their strategy and plan for the Georgia special election and often gave input. Republicans won a narrow victory in the deep red district.

While it’s not out of the ordinary for a White House chief of staff to keep close tabs on the party apparatus, especially when there are acute concerns about mid-term elections and as Trump increasingly needs an outside messaging operation to confront growing scandals, Priebus appears to be heavier handed than his predecessors.

The intense involvement is “surprising,” according to Chris Whipple, the author of "The Gatekeepers," a new history of chiefs of staff. "It surprises me because I never saw in my research active chiefs being heavily involved in the RNC,” he said.

What makes the arrangement more unusual is the all-consuming nature of the chief of staff position, and the need for service to the office of the presidency to outweigh other allegiances — sometimes even to the president himself, and certainly to outside political committees.

Priebus has an especially full portfolio in the West Wing, given that Trump and his aides are facing sprawling probes from the special counsel and congressional investigators, while also trying to muscle through a controversial Obamacare repeal bill, a tax reform package, and a $1 trillion infrastructure plan.

Two sources close to the RNC also say Priebus’ level of involvement is extraordinary and can be viewed as micro-managing. And it’s stoking speculation that Priebus, whose only other high-profile job was his RNC chairmanship, may be keeping his options open as he endures frequent criticism from Trump, which could intensify if the Senate’s health care push collapses.

“It’s his back-up plan,” the senior Republican operative said about a potential return by Priebus to the RNC.

White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters defended Priebus’ involvement as normal for an administration and its party committee. The White House declined to comment further.

The RNC has already proven a useful landing pad for ousted White House staffers, including former deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh and former communications director Michael Dubke, both of whom have done messaging work with the RNC since leaving the West Wing.

RNC spokesman Ryan Mahoney pushed back on the notion that there’s anything unusual about Priebus’s regular communication with top officials at the organization.

“They talk on a regular basis for sure,” Mahoney said of Priebus and McDaniel, adding that Priebus remains interested in the RNC’s work and that it’s natural for a White House to be close with its party committee. The relationship may appear unusual, he argued, only because Barack Obama’s White House was infamously dismissive of the Democratic Party apparatus.

Obama was particularly distant from former DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who ran the DNC from 2011 to the summer of 2016, and whose tenure has been widely panned.

But the RNC-White House relationship that exists now appears to go beyond useful cooperation to direct control.

Already, the White House communications shop is stacked with RNC veterans, and some in the White House have griped that the press shop is more passionate in its defenses of Priebus than the president.

Underscoring Priebus’ grip, Walsh, his former chief of staff, is back on contract at the RNC after a brief stint in the White House in an amorphous role. And McDaniel has told associates that “she needs to run decisions up the flag pole,” according to one person who has spoken with her, particularly when the moves involve staffing and spending. The White House denied that Priebus remains involved in staffing and spending decisions.

White House officials even asked the RNC to put out a strange statement attacking MSNBC's Morning Joe television program after Trump watched it one morning, said one administration official. Later that day, the RNC wrote a lengthy dissection of a morning news program, saying it suffered from “the worst case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” an atypical move for a national political party.

Press secretary Sean Spicer, the RNC’s former communications director who remains in contact with some of its employees, spent the day before the former FBI Director James Comey’s high-profile Senate hearing at the RNC headquarters with other staffers. Priebus and Spicer worked to coordinate the pushback to the Russia inquiry, a message operation that is mostly centered outside the White House.

Priebus keeps in close touch with RNC staffers, including Walsh, who spends "considerable time" at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, one person familiar with the operation said. She also has been in the White House meeting with Priebus about political decisions. When Walsh gives requests at the RNC, "everyone assumes she is just speaking for Reince," said one strategist with knowledge of the discussions.

Some at the RNC have bristled at Walsh’s return, viewing it as Priebus’ overt move to exert control.

But others view Priebus’ continued RNC involvement as little more than an old habit, a zone of familiarity separate and apart from the warring West Wing.